As AI data centers continue to pop up around the nation, they’re requiring more and more power. Our grid can’t keep up, and it’s average Americans who are being forced to pay the cost.

From Bloomberg. Every day, Americans reach into their refrigerators or turn on their dishwashers without much thought given to the electricity flowing through their homes. But a hidden problem now threatens these seemingly mundane tasks: distorted power supplies.

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The term for the issue is “bad harmonics.” It may seem a bit esoteric, but you can think of it like the static that can be heard when a speaker’s volume is jacked up higher than it can handle. Electricity travels across high-voltage lines in waves, and when those wave patterns deviate from what’s considered ideal, it distorts the power that flows into homes. Bad harmonics can force home electronics to run hot, or even cause the motors in refrigerators and air conditioners to rattle. It’s an issue that can add up to billions of dollars in total damage.

More importantly, bad harmonics are symptomatic of much deeper problems that are engulfing the US grid.

Distorted waves are just one measure of broader power quality. When homes experience good, or stable, power quality, it means that the flow of electricity for lights and appliances is being delivered at an even and predictable pace. The worse power quality gets, the more the risk increases. Sudden surges or sags in electrical supplies can lead to sparks and even home fires. Left unaddressed, one problem can morph into another. That means the bad harmonics of today can be a sign of potential disaster down the road. …

Whisker Labs tracks power quality in real-time using roughly 1 million residential sensors, which are spread so widely across the country that nearly 90% of US homes are within half a mile of one. A Bloomberg analysis of exclusive sensor data coupled with data from DC Byte, a market intelligence firm, showed a strong link between proximity to data centers and worsening harmonics.

More than half of the tracked households showing the worst distortions of power quality are located within 20 miles of significant data center activity, according to the analysis, which covered readings from February through October. US census figures show that about 3.7 million Americans live in the most-impacted areas.

Experts have been warning for some time now about the impact data centers will have on power grids across the globe. The AI boom has only underscored the issue: The digital economy is sucking up so much power that demand is now straining available supplies of electricity in many parts of the world, leading to concerns over price increases and even widespread outages. And that’s only projected to worsen as more data centers are built.

The new harmonics data shows how these problems are already starting to play out in real time across the US.

It’s an issue that goes beyond just whether or not there’s enough power to flip the lights on. Distortions mean that even as electricity is flowing to homes, the quality can be eroded enough to destroy appliances and increase vulnerability to electrical fires if there’s a voltage surge. Poorer power quality overall can also eventually lead to lights flickering along with brownouts and blackouts. …

The grid has never faced the kinds of strain that comes with data centers. These city-sized users can pop up very quickly, within a year or two, which is much faster than grid planning usually happens. Even during population booms, the rise in power demand paled in comparison to the expected installation in the coming years of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these facilities to power AI. That stress is adding to problems of aging infrastructure, extreme weather and the electrification of more parts of everyday life, such as the rise of electric vehicles. …

The problems in the US are compounded by the fact that not enough investment has gone into the grid to fortify it for the coming demand boom. For decades, US power use was largely flat. Now, it’s about to be turbocharged. The nation’s demand for electricity will surge almost 16% over the next five years, more than triple the estimate from a year ago, driven largely by new data centers, according to a recent report from Grid Strategies, a DC-based consulting firm.

The increase means that without major improvements to the grid and power equipment, harmonics issues seen today are likely to get worse. …

Almost nowhere are the correlations between data centers and bad harmonics as clear as in an area of Northern Virginia that’s been dubbed “data center alley,” the global center of the industry. The area is mostly located in Loudoun County, outside of Washington, DC, which saw its data-center capacity increase by 2% in 2024 to about 3,000 megawatts (MW).

Nationally, the data analysis showed that roughly 1.7% of sensors in the average county had at least one monthly reading that exceeded the 8%-threshold for bad harmonics. That share was more than four times higher in Loudoun County. …

Some solutions are already in the works.

Most new data centers in Virginia require their own substation and transformer to be able to come online and this isolates them from nearby distribution circuits, limiting their impact on other customers, Dominion spokesman Ruby said. The Virginia utility is building a new transmission line into Loudoun County to address power quality and reliability constraints overall. Devices like filters and capacitors can help address harmonics issues around data centers. …

What do you think of this? Share your prayers for our grid below.

(Excerpt from Bloomberg. Photo Credit: Pixabay/Pexels)